Bear Grylls is no stranger to extremes. During a three-year stint in the SAS he was involved in a horrific parachuting accident in Africa and broke his back in three places. Months of rehabilitation followed but, never losing sight of his childhood dream of climbing Everest, Bear went on to become the youngest Briton ever to reach the summit and survive. It was a close-run thing, however, as during the descent he was almost killed in a crevasse, his life saved only by his team-mate and a rope. I...
The Sunday Times bestseller, Making It is an inspirational memoir about beating the odds and turning things around even when it all seems hopeless, by Jay Blades, the beloved star of hit BBC One show The Repair Shop.We had our hardships, and there were times that we didn’t have a lot of food and didn’t have a lot of money. But that didn’t stop me having the time of my life.In his book, Jay shares the details of his life, from his childhood growing up sheltered and innocent on a council estate in...
From Diana Darke, the acclaimed author of My House in Damascus and The Merchant of Syria, comes the extraordinary true story of a heroic ambulance driver who created a cat sanctuary in the midst of war-torn Aleppo."I'll stay with them no matter what happens. Someone who has mercy in his heart for humans has mercy for every living thing."When war came to Alaa Aljaleel's hometown, he made a remarkable decision to stay behind, caring for the people and animals caught in the crossfire. While thousan...
This is an incredibly moving account of tragedy and its aftermath, as told by Gill Hicks, survivor of the London bombings in July 2005. Gill was the last person to be pulled alive from the wreckage of the tube train at Russell Square underground station. Unidentifiable on arrival in hospital, having sustained horrific injuries which led to both of her legs being amputated, Gill was labelled as ‘One Unknown’ on her wristband and life hung in the balance for several days. She was saved by the dedi...
Through interviews conducted with surviving members of Soviet orchestras, through his reading of philosophers, psychoanalysts, and neurologists, Johnson paints a compelling picture of one man's music and its power to validate and sustain another man's life.
'The next round in Billy's fight is pain-racked, frank and reflective . . . an inspiring piece from a man who's been to hell and back and has the scars to prove it'JOE COLE'Brutally honest, dark and disturbing. A book that tells of the reality of drugs and a failing prison system'NEIL SAMWORTH, author of Strangeways: A Prison Officer's Story'Billy Moore writes with such a tragic authenticity that it kept me willing for him to succeed, even as I knew he was never too far from self-destruction. It...
Guy Grieve's life was going nowhere - trapped in a job he hated, commuting 2,000 miles a month and up to his neck in debt. But he dreamed of escaping it all to live alone in one of the wildest, most remote places on earth - Alaska. And just when he'd given up hope, the dream came true. Suddenly Guy was thrown into one of the harshest environments in the world, miles from the nearest human being and armed with only the most basic equipment. And he soon found - whether building a log cabin from sc...